


Hold Our Grounds

by katayla



Category: Secret Society Girl - Diana Peterfreund
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/pseuds/katayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Relationships are <i>hard</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Our Grounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wintercreek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercreek/gifts).



Relationship are _hard_.

 

Which, duh, Amy Haskel. Why have you avoided them for so long? There was no such thing as a perfect relationship.

 

"Just call him," Clarissa said. We were at the Caritas office, and the discussion had turned to Jamie. Who hadn't returned my emails all week.

 

"No. He's busy. He has finals." I spun my chair around. Clearly, I'd given up working in favor of obsessing. Jamie and I weren't attached at the hip or anything, but we did normally exchange several emails a day, talk every couple of days. IM each other. Etc. We've had our communication issues, but complete lack of it wasn't exactly one.  "He doesn't want to talk to me."

 

"He loves you," Jenny said. "Of course he'll want to talk to you."

 

I was—mostly—confident enough in our relationship to believe that, but that was normal Jamie. Finals Jamie was stressed, grumpy and didn't seem to want to talk to anyone. Okay, so maybe I was a little scared to call him. One of our biggest fights had taken place during his _last_ finals week.

 

I dropped my head to the table. "I miss finals."

 

"You were a literature major," Jenny said. "Did you even _have_ finals?"

 

"I had finals!" Like the professor who asked us to write down the author of Hamlet on a piece of paper and turn it in. Of course, we'd also had to write a ten page paper.

 

"If you did, you wouldn't miss them," Clarissa said.

 

I sighed and went back to spinning in my chair. "He has his last final tomorrow."

 

"Why don't you go down and surprise him?" Harun asked.

 

We all stared at him. Harun was pretty patient with our boy talk, but he normally didn't volunteer advice.

 

He shrugged. "Jenny's right. He'll want to talk to you. Seeing you is even better. This way, you won't disturb him during finals."

 

I liked it. When I first moved to New York, Jamie had taken to showing up unexpectedly every month or so. I'd walk into the apartment Jenny, Clarissa and I shared, and he'd be sitting on the couch, one of his law books open in his lap. Then we'd go out for cheap pizza and drinks and come back home and fall into bed.

 

These days, we were both busier and didn't have as much time for unplanned visits. Caritas had finally really taken off and Jamie was finishing up his second year of law school. And we had reached that stage as a couple that I'd heard of, but never experienced, where we were comfortable enough with each other that we didn't have to see each other all the time.

 

Except, of course, when I hadn't heard from him all week. We both liked our space, but I liked some indication that my boyfriend was still actually alive.

 

"You still with us, Amy?" Jenny asked.

 

No. Not really. I was back at Eli, imagining my reunion with Jamie. It had been almost two months since we'd seen each other. We tried to see each other once a month, but, well. We were busy, ambitious people. It was hard to fit romance in.

 

"Earth to Amy," Clarissa said, and threw her pencil at me.

 

I threw it back and stood up. "I'm going to book a train ticket for tomorrow. If that's okay with my boss?"

 

"Yes!" Jenny said. "Get out of here! You're of no use to me like this."

 

One of the perks of working with one of your closest friends was taking time off on short notice. Not that any of us took advantage of it that often, but some of my other friends told horror stories about their bosses. It was nice not to worry about getting yelled at because you left for the weekend a little early. Or slept in. (Though that one was hard to pull off, seeing as I _lived_ with my boss.)

 

I'd become very familiar with the Metro North system over the last few years. Of course, I'd taken it as an undergrad, too, but it was different now. Jetting back and forth from New York. Young professional Amy Haskel, off to spend weekends with her boyfriend. Who'd have thought?

 

The train ride the next day seemed to take longer than usual. I hadn't realized how much I missed Jamie. Two months was just too long. I tapped my fingers on the side of the seat and smiled at the other passengers, who mostly ignored me.

 

Walking across the Eli campus never felt as different as I thought it should. Maybe I'd never gotten enough used to _not_ walking across it. I'd spent so much time here with Jamie and Lydia. Sometimes it felt like I could go up to my old suite and everything would be the same.

 

I sat on the steps outside the law building. I was early and Jamie was the type to use the full amount of time allotted for the final. You could tell it was the end of the year. The campus was mostly empty. Every so often, a tired student stumbled past me. Maybe Clarissa and Jenny were right. I didn't miss that utter exhaustion.

 

When Jamie exited the building, I stood up and smiled at him.

 

He stood there for a minute and smiled back. "Amy."

 

And I walked up to him, almost as shy as if we'd just started dating. Except for I hadn't really been shy then. "I missed you."

 

"I know. I meant to email you, but I was studying—"

 

"It's okay."

 

And, looking at him, it was. This was his dream. It didn't mean he wouldn't ever have time for me, it didn't mean I had to take a backseat all the time, but it did mean I had to be a little patient. Like he was with me. Sometimes we talked about the future. It was still a little strange to me, to be able to look into the future and see romance at all, but it felt right with Jamie. And, if you had a future, who cared about a few missed emails?

 

So I kissed him and said, "Come on. Let's celebrate the end of finals."


End file.
